


All mimsy were the borogroves

by BrideOfBronn (SilkCut)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, character examination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 17:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6384841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilkCut/pseuds/BrideOfBronn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The adventures never ended for her, falling from one rabbit-hole to the next, starting out as Alice but becoming different sorts of things along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All mimsy were the borogroves

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in FFNet on April 9, 2014.
> 
> This was a fanfiction request submitted to my tumblr. It's about Jacqueline's character from Once Upon A Time season 2 episode Tiny. The scenario given is that during her death scene, it was revealed that she's actually Alice.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The adventures never ended for her, falling from one rabbit-hole to the next, starting out as Alice but becoming different sorts of things along the way. It was so nice to play parts, to get tangled in labyrinths and secret passages, and scavenge through dark chambers never ever knowing which sight and sound will go together next. This Alice, so very, _very_ curious and full of wonder, whose age only catches up with her when she stands long enough to see her reflection in the looking-glass. No longer seven years old, that Alice, so she's always eager to dance, to partake on assorted substances, to fuck and kill until all her journeys became more vicious—ravenous—where ecstasy and pain are equally self-inflicted and hard to live without.

She was Jacqueline now. But she had too many names written on too many postcards, too many lovers and partners in crimes; Prince James being the latest whom she chased away like the others. And falling, always with the falling, whether for a hidden treasure, a heartbreaking seaside view, or a mad man with a funny hat.

She's falling again, but this time her landing took her nowhere special. She was smacked hard on the cobblestoned ground. Numbing, crippling, unbearably intense pain on her chest, like something was clawing its way out of her, has restored her sense only for her to realize that the madness eroded the last shred of the real Alice. No one is going to put her back together again. No king's men. Her prince couldn't care.

This inconspicuous visitor—this intrusive traveller—this Alice, she slaughtered the giants in their own home because she's a collector of massacres, a harbinger of misfortune. Oh, people are nothing but a pack of cards to her. And yet as she lay there choking on her own vomit and weirdly tasting the cake she ate earlier, it occurred to her that these creatures deserved a better ending, a fate kinder than that of the Jabberwocky she had slain so many lifetimes ago.

Gnawing through the rest of her flesh, the pain is on her throat now. Her tongue is beginning to feel like it was scalded by hot tea, like she sipped the wrong cup. Like she always does. He hated that, but it endeared her to him nonetheless as much as his riddles about ravens and writing desks annoyed her. So very mad with his funny hat, yet utterly and insanely _hers_.

The poison infected her lungs and ripped through every membrane of her body next. She screamed as her insides felt as if they were being scooped hollow. Something was making its way out of her. She imagined it has a misshapen head. She imagined it has fingers and toes. It's a tiny creature making her way to the waking world, climbing out of the hole.

It was the blessing she never asked for and she breathed out its single syllable. "Grace."

But Alice is falling again, always with the falling...

 

 

* * *

 _All mimsy were the borogoves_ is a line that comes from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky poem


End file.
